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Bernard Shaw as s^oi 
Artist-Philosopher. 



BERNARD SHAW 

As Artist-Philosopher: An 
Exposition of Shavianism 

By Renee M. Deacon 



NEW YORK 

JOHN LANE COMPANY 

MCMX 



Copyright, 191 o, by 
John Lane Company 



f]^ S3LI 
.J4- 



GI.A271373 








Contents 




Chapter 




page 


I. 


Dramatic Theory 


9 


IL 


The Revolt against Romance 


25 


III. 


The Choice of Comedy . 


40 


IV. 


Dramatic Consciousness . 


55 


V. 


Philosophy of Life . 


72 


VL 


Bernard Shaw and the World 


83 


VIL 


The Function of Bernard 






Shaw .... 


100 



His Word was in my heart as a burning fire 
shut up in my bones, and I was weary with 
forbearing, and I could not stay. 



Chapter I 

Dramatic Theory 

"DERNARD SHAW, with eminently 
characteristic generosity, has given us 
several Important clues to dramatic theory. 
These should be carefully studied by any- 
one who wishes to understand his views 
on dramatic art. 

In the Preface to the Pleasant Plays he 
enunciates the law of conflict. " Unity, 
however desirable In political agitations, is 
fatal to drama, since every drama must be 
the artistic presentation of a conflict. The 
end may be reconciliation or destruction; 
or, as in life Itself, there may be no end; 
but the conflict is indispensable: no con- 
flict, no drama." 

The dramatic value of conflict is su- 
preme, because conflict, more than any 
other state, exposes character. Browning 
was fond of selecting for delineation " test 
moments," or crises in the lives of his 
9 



Bernard Shaw 

characters, since he held that these mo- 
ments most truly revealed the men and 
women of whom he wrote. But a test 
moment can supply only the climax of a 
drama. Sustained dramatic writing de- 
mands, besides these crises, steady and con- 
tinuous conflict and interplay of character 
and emotion. It argues a weakness in 
Browning's dramatic genius that he so fre- 
quently isolated these test moments from 
their normal setting in the lives of his 
characters. Nevertheless, the idea which 
lay at the root of this emphasis of the test 
moment, namely, the supreme value of 
conflict in the exposition of character, was 
a true one. 

We will select first for consideration con- 
flict of a rather extreme type — that found 
in The Devil's Disciple. By means of this 
conflict the characters of Judith, Dick and 
Anderson are wholly revealed in less than 
two (dramatic) days. Discoveries are 
made in that short space of time which 
would have demanded the slow revelation 
of months or years in the ordinary course 
of events. 

lO 



Dramatic Theory 

Herein, then, lies the dramatic value of 
conflict — in the rapid and complete expo- 
sition of character. The more acute the 
conflict, the more rapid and complete is 
the revelation. 

The result is a manifold surprise for all 
concerned. The ne'er-do-weel, Richard, 
finds himself sacrificing his own life to save 
another man. When called upon to supply 
a reason for his action, he finds himself at 
a loss. " What I did last night," he tells 
Judith, " I did in cold blood, caring not 
half so much for your husband, or for you 
as I do for myself. I had no motive and 
no interest: all I can tell you is that when 
it came to the point whether I would take 
my neck out of the noose and put another 
man's into it, I could not do it. I don't 
know why not: I see myself as a fool for 
my pains; but I could not and I cannot." 

Anthony Anderson, the Presbyterian 
minister, finds himself also in a contradic- 
tory position. " I thought myself a decent 
minister of the gospel of peace; but when 
the hour of trial came to me, I found that 
it was my destiny to be a man of action, 
II 



Bernard Shaw 

and that my place was amid the thunder 
of the captains and the shouting.'^ 

The test of Judith is of a different 
nature. One conceives of her, after it is 
over, as of a woman for whom all moral 
values are altered. For her, as for so 
many in the late nineteenth and even in the 
early twentieth century, names and labels 
had usurped the place of the spirit which 
they were intended to signify. A man was 
either a good or a bad man, according as 
he subscribed or did not subscribe to 
current moral conventions. It never 
occurred to her to test these conventions 
by the side of the highest moral concep- 
tions known to her soul. Suddenly she is 
brought face to face with the Devil's Dis- 
ciple (whom, in accordance with her code, 
she has conscientiously hated and dreaded) 
in the act of sacrificing his life to save her 
husband. 

The result is twofold. First — O king 
of paradoxes ! — she finds herself in love 
with this man, for one moment of blind 
intoxication with the heroism of the new 
life that is in him. And when this is over, 

12 



Dramatic Theory 

and the last agony of the gallows has be- 
come like the memory of a fearful 
dream, one conceives of her, as I have said, 
in the quiet possession of these new values, 
these strange interpretations of the things of 
the soul. 

The conflict in The DeviPs Disciple is, 
as we have seen, a violent one. A more 
subtle example of the dramatic value of 
conflict is afforded by Caesar and Cleopatra. 

At the opening of the play, Cleopatra is 
a spoilt kitten, wont to encourage every 
whim, yet in abject submission to her 
Nurse Ftatateeta, who rules the Queen's 
Household with a rod of iron. At the end 
of the play she is a woman, who acts for 
good or evil on her own initiative, and 
pursues her aims without mercy. 

** Cleopatra,'' says Pothinus, " you are 
changed." 

" Do you speak with Caesar every day 
for six months," she returns, ** and you will 
be changed." And she continues : " When 
I was foolish, I did what I liked, except 
when Ftatateeta beat me; and even then I 
cheated her and did It by stealth. Now 
13 



Bernard Shaw 

that Caesar has made me wise, it is no use 
my liking or dishking : I do what must be 
done, and have no time to attend to myself. 
That is not happiness; but it is greatness." 
In this play character, and the conflict of 
character direct events, whereas in The 
Devil's Disciple conflict of events reveals 
character. 

We may take as a second great principle 
of dramatic theory that given in the superb 
Preface to Man and Superman: it may be 
briefly summarized as the repudiation of 
the absolute point of view. Bernard Shaw 
says of his characters : ** They are all right 
from their several points of view; and their 
points of view are, for the dramatic mo- 
ment, mine also. This may puzzle the 
people who believe that there is such a 
thing as an absolutely right point of view, 
usually their own. It may seem to them 
that nobody who doubts this can be in a 
state of grace. However that may be, it is 
certainly true that nobody who agrees with 
them can possibly be a dramatist, or Indeed 
anything else that turns upon a knowledge 
of mankind." 

14 



Dramatic Theory 

During the period of dramatic creation 
the dramatist becomes identified with each 
of his characters in turn. As they are, so 
is he. The greater the dramatist, the more 
fully this identification becomes possible. 
Thus also it comes about that the philoso- 
pher-dramatist exercises the most god-like 
of all art-functions, because since he can 
comprehend the lives and purposes of 
many men, he must be himself either as 
great or greater than any of them, and his 
understanding of the universe above and 
beyond theirs. He is Superman,* that 
which is beyond man, and greater. That 
always seems to me a curious objection, 
w^hlch G. K. Chesterton has made to Ber- 
nard Shaw, to the effect that he does not 
represent " mankind." In all conscience, 
have we not '* mankind " enough? And 
to what has It brought us, this mass of auto- 
matically working, living, loving, non- 
thinking humanity? To a social order 
which renders the name of civilization a 

• It should be clearly understood, however, that the philos- 
opher-dramatists hitherto have been " accidental Supermen " 
and not The Superman as anticipated in the Appendix to 
Man and Superman. 

15 






f^: 



Bernard Shaw 

mockery and a shame. Let us welcome 
a genius who can offer us something more 
than common humanity is able to do. 

I have just stated that we may say of the 
Shavian characters in relation to Bernard 
Shaw himself that, " for the dramatic mo- 
ment," as they are so is he. It will be seen 
that the proposition is equally true when 
reversed. " As he is, so theyiare.'* In the 
Preface to The Sanity of Art he gives us 
his clue to his characters. ** As a drama- 
tist I have no clue to any historical or other 
personage save that part of him which is 
also myself, and which may be nine-tenths 
of him or ninety-nine hundredths, as the 
case may be (if, indeed, I do not transcend 
the creature), but which, anyhow. Is all 
that can ever come within my knowledge of 
his soul.*' 

It is most interesting to consider the 
Shavian portraits from this standpoint. 
Taking Into account the plays published 
up to the time of writing. Tanner, Cassar, 
and Andrew Undershaft reveal the Shavian 
mind in the greatest degree. I do not mean 
for one moment that the resemblance is an 
i6 



Dramatic Theory 

affair of outward fact. But, in the case of 
Tanner for instance, the mould in which 
the man is cast is essentially Shavian : the 
Tanneresque method of grappling with hte 
at close quarters, unsparing of strength and 
energy: of thinking of other peoples ne- 
cessities instead of his own or anybody 
else's ''confounded principles, is emin- 
ently characteristic of Mr. Shaw himself. 

In the Preface to Man and Superman it 
is stated that " Philosophically, Don Juan 
is a man . . . gifted enough to be exception- 
ally capable of distinguishing between good 
and evil." This point must be dwelt on, 
because it follows from it that Tanner 
(who is the philosophic Don Juan) is an 
incarnate challenge to the current standards 
of life and morality. That any advance in 
morals must be preceded by such a challenge 
is made clear in The Sanity of Art : " Every 
step in morals is made by challenging the 
validity of the existing conception of per- 
fect propriety of conduct." 

Finally, a last quotation from Man and 
Superman will illustrate supremely the pre- 
cise quality of the Shavian temper. Thus 
« 17 



Bernard Shaw 

Don Juan, bored to extinction In hell : " I 
tell you that as long as I can conceive some- 
thing better than myself I cannot be easy 
unless I am striving to bring It Into exist- 
ence or clearing the way for It. That Is 
the law of my life. That Is the working 
within me of Life's Incessant aspiration 
to higher organization, wider, deeper, In- 
tenser self-consciousness, and clearer self- 
understanding.'* 

Andrew Undershaft, although on the 
surface a very different person from Tan- 
ner, illustrates the Shavian mind in much 
the same way. They are at one, for ex- 
ample, on the question of the fallibility of 
common judgment as regards right and 
wrong. In a delightful passage. Lady 
Britomart discusses with her son her hus- 
band's weakness in this respect: — 

" I really cannot bear an Immoral man. 
I am not a Pharisee, I hope; and I should 
not have minded his merely doing wrong 
things: we are none of us perfect. But 
your father didn't exactly do wrong things : 
he said them and thought them: that was 
what was so dreadful. . . . You would all 



Dramatic Theory 

have grown up without principles, without 
any knowledge of right and wrong * if he 
had been in the house." Compare with this 
a conversation between Stephen and his 
father in Act III with regard to the choice 
of a profession for the former. Stephen 
has repudiated any pretension to art or 
philosophy. His father's suggestions of 
*' the army, the navy, the Church, the Bar," 
fail to rouse any interest in him. The 
following conversation ensues: — 

Undershaft: Rather a difficult case, Stephen. 
Hardly anything left but the stage is there? [Ste- 
phen makes an impatient movement] Well, come! 
Is there anything you know or care for? 

Stephen [rising and looking at him steadily] : I 
know the difference between right and wrong. 

Undershaft [hugely tickled] : You don't say so ! 
What ! no capacity for business, no knowledge of 
law, no sympathy with art, no pretension to philoso- 
phy; only a simple knowledge of the secret that has 
puzzled all the philosophers, baffled all the lawyers, 
muddled all the men of business, and ruined most of 
the artists: the secret of right and wrong. Why, 
man, you're a genius, a master of masters, a god! 
At twenty- four, too! 

Stephen [keeping his temper with difficulty] : 

* Italics are mine. — R. M. D. 
19 



Bernard Shaw 

You are pleased to be facetious. I pretend to noth- 
ing more than any honorable English gentleman 
claims as his birthright. [He sits down angrily.] 

Tanner, Caesar, and Undershaft are all 
alike In one respect — they regard them- 
selves as instruments of the Life Force, or, 
to use an older phrase, of the Divine Will. 
They exist, not for personal ends — ambi- 
tion, happiness, and the like — but to fulfil 
a purpose which Is infinitely greater than 
these. This point of view is essentially 
Shavian. So In the Preface to Man and 
Superman: "This is the true joy in life, 
the being used for a purpose recognized by 
yourself as a mighty one; the being thor- 
oughly worn out before you are thrown on 
the scrap heap, the being a force of Nature 
instead of a feverish selfish little clod of 
ailments and grievances complaining that 
the world will not devote itself to making 
you happy. And also the only real tragedy 
In life is the being used by personally 
minded men for purposes which you recog- 
nize to be base/^ 

Andrew Undershaft's particular method 
of fulfilling the purpose of the Life Force 

20 



Dramatic Theory 

Is the direction of the cannon foundry: 
*' the Undershaft inheritance." He does 
not regard this business as his own posses- 
sion with which he may do as he pleases : he 
is rather possessed by it. 

Lady Britomart : ... To think of all that [in- 
dicating the town] being yours ! and that you have 
kept it to yourself all these years ! 

Undershaft : It does not belong to me. I belong 
to it. It is the Undershaft inheritance. 

Again, when Undershaft says that if 
Cusins succeeds to the foundry he must 
" keep the true faith of an Armorer," that 
Is, " to give arms to all men who offer an 
honest price for them, without respect of 
persons or principles:" the following con- 
versation ensues: — 

Cusins : I shall sell cannons to whom I please and 
refuse them to whom I please. So there! 

Undershaft : From the moment when you become 
Andrew Undershaft, you will never do as you please 
again. Don't come here lusting for power, young man. 

Cusins: If power were my aim I should not 
come here for it. You have no power. 

Undershaft: None of my own, certainly. 

Cusins: I have more power than you, more will. 
You do not drive this place: it drives you. And 
what drives the place? 

21 



Bernard Shaw 

Undershaft [enigmatically] : A will of which I 
am a part. 

The same principle — that of fulfiUIng 
the purpose of the Life Force — animates 
Caesar's hfe. The great lesson which Cleo- 
patra learns from him is that she must do, 
not what she likes, but " what must be 
done." *' Now that Caesar has made me 
wise," she says, " it is no use my liking or 
disliking: I do what must be done. . . . 
That is not happiness; but it Is greatness.'' 

Caesar does not make claims upon life: 
he recognizes Instead that life lays claim to 
him. He gives utterance to this Idea in a 
characteristic speech : — 

RuFio: Caesar: I am loth to let you go to Rome 
without your shield. There are too many daggers 
there. 

C^sar: It matters not: I shall finish my life's 
work on my way back; and then I shall have lived 
long enough. 

The same point is very strikingly ex- 
emplified towards the close of Man and 
Superman. 

Tanner: We do the world's will, not our own. 
I have a frightful feeling that I shall let myself be 
22 



Dramatic Theory 

married because it is the world's will that you should 
have a husband. 

The Idea which underlies all these pas- 
sages Is magnificently summed up in 
Act III of Man and Superman : — 

Don Juan : I tell you, gentlemen, if you can shew 
a man a piece of what he now calls God's work to do, 
and what he will later on call by many new names, 
you can make him entirely reckless of the conse- 
quences to himself personally. 

In the Preface to Three Plays for Puri- 
tans, Bernard Shaw works out the thesis 
that ** there can be no new drama without 
a new philosophy." He points out that 
*' the writing of practicable stage plays does 
not present an infinite scope to human 
talent: " the summit of dramatic art " has 
been attained again and again." He cites 
Lear (tragedy), Peer Gynt (comedy), 
Don Giovanni (opera), the NIblung's Ring 
(music drama) in proof of this. Then In 
one sentence he reaches the heart of the 
problem : " It is the philosophy, the out- 
look on life, that changes, not the craft of 
the playwright." 

If men find themselves in opposition to 
23 



Bernard Shaw 

the conceptions and ideals of life and con- 
duct, which prevail in their generation, 
they must, if they write plays, write them 
'* in terms of their own philosophy." For 
this reason " there can be no new drama 
without a new philosophy." 

Again, a modern author cannot hope to 
surpass the art of Shakespear. What he 
can hope to do, is to say something which 
Shakespear did not say: something which, 
like Caesar, " was not in Shakespear, nor in 
the epoch, now fast waning, which he in- 
augurated." 



24 



chapter II 

The Revolt Against 
Romance 

CHAW speaks of Romance as the great 
heresy to be swept from Art and Life. 
It should be noted, however, that the word 
Romance as used by him in this connection 
may be properly understood to mean the 
degeneration of the Romantic idea. 

For of the strangeness and the beauty 
and the wonder of Romance life is indeed 
full, and of it Bernard Shaw takes ample 
account in his plays. But he will have 
nothing to do with the false glamour which 
is cast over art and love by romance become 
degenerate. His plays from this point of 
view may be regarded as one continuous 
protest against the romantic view of love, 
culminating in Man and Superman. Shaw's 
point of view is above all things analytic. 
He is In the world but not of it. He has 
25 



Bernard Shaw 

a godlike Immunity from Its preoccupation 
with Itself: hence his attitude towards love 
is dispassionate, although his treatment of 
it never lacks passion. He refuses, like 
Tanner In Man and Superman, to be either 
*' the slave of love or Its dupe." 

It is a great fallacy to infer from what 
has just been said that Bernard Shaw be- 
littles love. On the contrary, he places it 
far higher in the universal scheme than do 
those who profess themselves Its most 
ardent advocates. " How do you know," 
says Don Juan, " that love is not the 
greatest of all the relations? far too great 
to be a personal matter." Man and Super- 
man Illustrates this theme. Love between 
the sexes, considered from the external and 
analytic point of view. Is Nature's device 
for the fulfilment of her great purpose — 
the continuance of the race. The man and 
woman are merely her agents. They are 
prompted and inspired by the Divine Will, 
or as Shaw would call It, the Life Force, to 
ends far transcending their own personal 
pleasure. Valentine describes the position 
of the lovers admirably In You Never Can 
26 



Revolt Against Romance 

Tell: " It's a curiously helpless sensation: 
isn't it? . . . as if Nature, after allowing 
us to belong to ourselves and do what we 
judged right and reasonable for all these 
years, were suddenly lifting her great hand 
to take us — her two little children — by 
the scruffs of our little necks, and use us, in 
spite of ourselves, for her own purposes, 
in her own way." Tanner expresses the 
same idea in the last great scene of Man 
and Superman: "We do the world's will, 
not our own. I have a frightful feeling 
that I shall let myself be married because it 
is the world's will that you should have a 
husband." 

Another essentially anti-romantic point 
in Shaw's treatment of love is his theory 
that the initiative in the sex-relation comes 
from the woman instead of from the man. 
Not only does he work out this thesis In 
his own plays — primarily, of course, in 
Man and Superman, which together with 
Getting Married may be taken as his chief 
utterance on the subject of love — but he 
also shows how it underlies the plays of 
Shakespear. " In Shakespear's plays the 
27 



Bernard Shaw 

woman always takes the initiative. In his 
problem plays and his popular plays alike 
the love interest is the interest of seeing 
the woman hunt the man down. She may 
do it by blandishment, like Rosalind, or by 
stratagem, like Mariana; but in every case 
the relation between the woman and the 
man is the same: she is the pursuer and 
contriver, he the pursued and disposed 
of."* 

For the woman's justification, we must 
look to the closing scene of Man and 
Superman. 

Tanner: [seizing her in his arms]: I love you. 
The Life Force enchants me: I have the whole 
world in my arms when I clasp you. But I am 
fighting for my freedom, for my honor, for my self, 
one and indivisible. 

Ann : Your happiness will be worth them all. 

Tanner: You would sell freedom and honor and 
self for happiness? 

Ann : It will not be all happiness for me. Per- 
haps death. 

To further the purpose of the Life Force 
woman takes the supreme risk. She puts 

*Man and Superman: Preface, p. xvi. 
28 



Revolt Against Romance 

her own life to the hazard, that she may 
create another hfe. 

Bernard Shaw has twice analysed the 
critical moment in the love encounter — the 
moment when the Life Force gains its 
point, so to speak. These two accounts are 
marvellously detailed and minute; they 
occur in You Never Can Tell (end of 
Act li) and in Man and Superman (end of 
Act iv). 

The chief point to notice about the crises 
which are here analysed is that the woman's 
moment of weakness is the man's moment 
of strength. Throughout the man may be 
vacillating, reluctant, uncertain of his goal: 
the woman determined, single of purpose, 
unfaltering in aim. Curiously enough, at 
the supreme moment she falters on the 
threshold; and with divine economy of 
force the man suddenly plucks up courage 
and carries her over it. So in You Never 
Can Tell: Gloria has been comparatively at 
her ease with Valentine ever since their first 
meeting: he has been uneasy and restless, 
his excitement increasing as he is entangled 
more and more inextricably in the meshes 
29 



Bernard Shaw 

of his love. Now comes the critical 
moment : — 

Valentine [in an agony of restrained passion] : 
Oh, don't pity me. Your voice is tearing my heart 
to pieces. Let me alone, Gloria, You go down into 
the very depths of me, troubling and stirring me — 
I can't struggle with it — I can't tell you ! 

Gloria [breaking down suddenly] : Oh, stop tell- 
ing me what you feel: I can't bear it. 

Valentine [springing up triumphantly, the ago- 
nised voice now solid, ringing, and jubilant] : Ah, it's 
come at last — my moment of courage. [He seizes 
her hands: she looks at him in terror.] Our mo- 
ment of courage ! [He draws her to him; kisses her 
with impetuous strength; and laughs boyishly]. 
Now you've done it, Gloria. It's all over: we're in 
love with one another. [She can only gasp at him.] 
But what a dragon you were ! And how hideously 
afraid I was! 

Romance in Shaw's plays depends on 
reality for its basis. He has " the philoso- 
pher's impatience to get to realities:" 
Reality, as he truly says, being the one 
thing which the majority of playgoers 
wish to escape from. That is because their 
own lives are so sordid that they despair of 
finding beauty, happiness, or Divinity in 
connection with the real world, and depart 
30 



Revolt Against Romance 

in search of them Into " the fool's Paradise 
of popular romance." 

To them Romance is a drug, ^n opiate: 
like the Oriental haschlsch, which provides 
its victims with marvellous dreams. This 
conception of life and romance is at the 
opposite pole to that which we find in 
Shaw's plays. Here an ever-increasing 
consciousness of life is the ideal aimed at. 
Only by facing facts can we hope to redeem 
the world: and without the redemption 
of the world individual well-being is im- 
possible : a man " must save the world's 
honor if he is to save his own." Bernard 
Shaw disposes of various fallacies in the 
dramatic treatment of love. He revolts 
against the modern idealization of love. 
Love can transfigure but cannot transform. 
*' Love can't give any man new gifts. It 
can only heighten the gifts he was born 
with." 

The lovers do not think one another 
perfect: they are keenly conscious, not 
only of beauty, but also of defect. Love 
persists and triumphs In spite of, not be- 
cause of, the defect. No lover really loves 

31 



Bernard Shaw 

his lady's faults. He loves the lady, and 
condones the faults for her sake: often, 
indeed, consciously deceives himself about 
them. Neither is love all-conquering, as 
we have been led to believe. Trifling 
difficulties in the path of love assume 
abnormal proportions. 

In the light of this conception of love, 
based on reahty and free from illusion, the 
cry of Mrs. George in Getting Married 
becomes simple of understanding: "Take 
me as I am, take me as I am." It is as if 
she said : " Take me as I am, because I have 
no power of changing myself: because I 
love you, and if you love me not, am lost: 
as I am, because I am destined for you, and 
only so can our destiny be fulfilled. Take 
me as I am, because you alone know what I 
am, and thus you alone are capable of 
evoking that which is latent in me." 

Examples could be multiplied from the 
Plays of the " freedom from illusion " 
which characterizes love. In Arms and the 
Man it is precisely the true knowledge of 
herself which he displays that attracts 
Raina to Bluntschli. 

32 



Revolt Against Romance 

Raina [wonderingly] : Do you know, you are the 
first man I ever met who did not take me seriously? 

Bluntschli : You mean, don't you, that I am the 
first man that has ever taken you quite seriously? 

Raina: Yes, I suppose I do mean that. 

In You Never Can Tell Valentine tells 
Gloria what he thinks of her without fear 
or favour — and advances his suit very 
materially thereby. 

Valentine: You're a prig — a feminine prig: 
that's what you are. 

If he had made love to her in the tradi- 
tional fashion she would have disposed 
of him very quickly: he did make an 
attempt in that direction before he learnt 
to know wisdom, i.e. Gloria : 

Valentine [pretending to forget himself] : How 
could that man have so beautiful a daughter! 

Gloria [taken aback for a moment : then answer- 
ing him with polite but intentional contempt] : That 
seems to be an attempt at what is called a pretty 
speech. Let me say at once, Mr. Valentine, that 
pretty speeches make very sickly conversation. 

The same freedom from illusion in the 
lover may be found in Widowers' Houses 
and The Philanderer. In Widowers' 
^ 33 



Bernard Shaw 

Houses Blanche makes an attempt to main- 
tain ideal external relations between herself 
and her lover : but she breaks down lament- 
ably: and when she and Trench finally 
make up their quarrel they do so with a 
clear knowledge of one another's weak- 
nesses. In The Philanderer Julia does not 
try to conceal her faults from the man 
she loves; and Charteris, wishing to pro- 
pitiate Grace, makes a feeble effort to con- 
ceal his, which she sees through at once. 
The denouement is brought about by a 
clear understanding of each other on the 
part of all concerned, except in the case of 
Paramore, the inveterate idealist — whom 
we have always with us. 

Man and Superman is the best proof of 
the case in point. In it we see Love, a 
potent force, moving inexorably to the 
accomplishment of its purpose, fully con- 
scious — and this is all-important — of 
what it is doing. Neither Ann nor Tanner 
have any illusions about each other. Tan- 
ner expresses his opinion of Ann pretty 
frankly in his conversation with Mrs. 
Whitefield towards the end of the Fourth 
34 



Revolt Against Romance 

Act: but he may say what he pleases: we 
know very well that It makes no difference 
to his fundamental belief about Ann, to his 
certainty, amounting to absolute knowledge, 
that she Is his destiny. He cannot be got 
to own more In her favour than that there 
Is " a sort of fascination " about her. This 
Is partly due to his temperament, partly to 
his restlveness under the imposition of the 
bonds of the Life Force. For he knows 
that from these bonds there is no escape. 

Ann : Well, if you don't want to be married, you 
needn't be [she turns away from him and sits down, 
much at her ease]. 

Tanner [following her] : Does any man want to 
be hanged? Yet men let themselves be hanged with- 
out a struggle for life, though they could at least 
give the Chaplain a black eye. We do the world's 
will, not our own. I have a frightful feeling that I 
shall let myself be married because it is the world's 
will that you should have a husband. 

The last two sentences sum up the whole 
question. The force which drew Tanner 
to Ann is the force which " holds together 
the Stars in their courses, and the atoms of 
the earth to their centre." It is the Life 
Force, and It knows no gainsaying. 
3S 



Bernard Shaw 

Not only does Shaw deal with love con- 
sidered intrinsically from a new point of 
view. In his plays he readjusts the dra- 
matic relations between love and the world. 
When he began to write, love was regarded 
as the staple material of Drama. The love 
interest was supposed to be the one unfail- 
ing interest for old and young, and to this 
consideration all others were subordinate. 
In Shaw's plays love is presented to us, as 
we see it In life, in relation with other great 
Issues. It is affected by a thousand com- 
plexities of thought and action, character 
and destiny. In a word, love occupies In 
the plays, as In life itself, a relative position. 

Two examples may be noted of Shaw's 
protest against the sophistication of our 
consciousness by the idealization of love at 
all costs. In the one case he protests 
against the belittling of friendship between 
one man and another. This occurs In 
John Bull's Other Island. 

Nora: You seem very fond of Tom, as you call 
him. 

Larry [the triviality going suddenly out of his 
voice] : Yes : I am fond of Tonv 

36 



Revolt Against Romance 

Later on the question recurs. 

Nora : You care more for him than you ever did 
for me. 

Larry [with curt sincerity] : Yes of course I do : 
why should I tell you lies about it? 

The other example occurs In The Devirs 
Disciple. Dick Dudgeon has taken An- 
thony Anderson's place and Is about to be 
hanged as a rebel. Judith, Anderson's 
wife, believes herself to be in love with 
Dick, and tries to persuade him that he has 
saved her husband for her sake. 

Richard: If I said — to please you — that I did 
what I did ever so little for your sake, I lied as men 
always lie to women. You know how much I have 
lived with worthless men — aye, and with worthless 
women too. Well, they could all rise to some sort 
of goodness and kindness when they were in love 
[the word love comes from him with true Puritan 
scorn]. That has taught me to set very little store 
by the goodness that only comes out red hot. What 
I did last night, I did in cold blood, caring not half 
so much for your husband, or [ruthlessly] for you 
[she droops, stricken] as I do for myself. I had no 
motive and no interest : all I can tell you is that when 
it came to the point whether I would take my neck 
out of the noose and put another man's into it, I 
could not do it. I don't know why not: I see my- 
self as a fool for my pains; but I could not and I 

37 



Bernard Shaw 

cannot. I have been brought up standing by the law 
of my own nature; and I may hot go against it, gal- 
lows or no gallows. [She has slowly raised her 
head and is now looking full at him.] I should have 
done the same for any other man in the town, or any 
other man's wife. 

In spite of all that has been said, some 
may still be found who will deny to Ber- 
nard Shaw any gift for producing purely 
romantic beauty. In answer I will give 
some examples of romantic beauty from 
the plays. 

Take in the first place, the character of 
Eugene, in Candida, a character conceived 
and executed in the very spirit of ro- 
mance. Think of the passage in which 
Eugene speaks, first of love, and of the 
dumbness of love, which is the world's tra- 
gedy; then of the ideal he desires for the 
woman he loves. What is this but ro- 
mance, romance which is the life and soul 
of reality, not a vague dream conceived 
apart from life, but a vital aspiration grow- 
ing out of life, part prayer, part ecstasy. 

" I wish I could find a country to live in 
where the facts were not brutal and the 
dreams not unreal." 

38 



Revolt Against Romance 

Surely these words of Larry's, rising out 
of the deep places of his soul, afford the 
best answer to anyone who denies Shaw's 
power to conceive wonder and beauty. 
They are a prayer for the perfect reality. 
Read, too, Caesar's speech before the 
Sphinx, Dubedat's dying speech In The 
Doctor's Dilemma, and the trance speech 
of Mrs. George In Getting Married, if you 
would understand the work of Bernard 
Shaw from this — the romantic — point of 
view. 



39 



Chapter III 

The Choice of Comedy 

r^OMEDY, considered In Its essence, 
represents the forces of life as opposed 
to the forces of death, the latter, in a 
greater or less degree, forming the subject 
of tragedy. When we speak of a tragic 
situation, we mean an impossible one, out 
of which there is no means of escape 
save death. Similarly, comedy plays the 
chief part In all those situations which are 
capable of furthering life In Its various 
manifestations. 

Anyone who has come thus far with me 
will agree that the subject with which Ber- 
nard Shaw is primarily concerned is always 
the same — namely, life. 

Don Juan: So would I enjoy the contemplation 
of that which interests me above all things : namely- 
Life: the force that ever strives to attain greater 
power of contemplating itself. 

40 



The Choice of Comedy 

Here Shaw defines the object of the 
Life Force as the attainment of con- 
sciousness. Hence it is not strange that 
he should set a high value on comedy, 
for in his Dramatic Opinions he gives us 
the following dictum : " The function of 
comedy is to dispel unconsciously by 
means of analysis." 

A w^hole chapter could be written on the 
plays from this point of view alone. If you 
think of it, that is one of the greatest ser- 
vices which Bernard Shaw has rendered to 
his generation : " to dispel unconscious- 
ness." A good half of the suffering and 
failure in the world is due to this state of 
unconsciousness which we are in. Ajid 
those who rail at Shaw as an iconoclast 
forget that much of this very unconscious- 
ness which he has done so much to dispel is 
due to an accumulation of traditional and 
conventional idealism out of which the 
spirit has passed, leaving the dry bones of 
form as so much hindrance to our progress 
in the future. 

It is in this sense that he speaks of 
comedy as " the fine art of disillusion "— 
41 



Bernard Shaw 

which, quite apart from his own plays, it 
certainly Is. Go back to Shakespear, take 
Falstaff, the most comic figure In a world 
of comedy; out of what does the humour 
of Falstaff arise save out of the Insight we 
get Into his follies and weaknesses, by 
means of the searchlight of analysis, 
thrown on him by Shakespear? Out of 
the *' fine art of disillusion " In fact. 

Hence It may be said of Shavian drama 
as a whole that It is written In the comic 
(or life-giving) spirit. 

George Meredith has spoken of " the 
uses of comedy in teaching the world to 
understand what ails it." The idea is a 
fine one. This healing effect of comedy is 
constantly to be seen at work in Bernard 
Shaw's plays. It is in this direction among 
others that he makes good his title to philo- 
sopher. For if he were simply an artist 
he might be content to present us with 
comedies in the vein of Mr. Somerset 
Maugham, whose witty and dehghtful 
plays have obtained so great a vogue. But 
Shaw has a purpose beyond any which Mr. 
Maugham has at present revealed to us. 
42 



The Choice of Comedy 

His pictures of " social follies " in the Plea- 
sant Plays and of '' social horrors " in the 
Unpleasant Plays are meant to do more 
than merely to amuse you. They are meant 
to rouse you to action, to fruitful thought, 
to availing resolution, that such things 
shall not remain as they are : that the social 
follies shall become less tolerable, and that 
the social horrors shall cease to be tolerable 
any more for ever. 

" Life," says George Meredith, " Is not 
a comedy, but something strangely mixed." 
Hence it is obvious that if drama truly 
holds the mirror up to Nature, it will, 
speaking quite seriously, present some- 
thing which is " strangely mixed " also. 
As life grows more complex and varied cen- 
tury by century, owing to the ever-increas- 
ing consciousness of the human race, so 
the boundary lines or drama will shift and 
merge in a manner hitherto unknown. 
Probably quite simple plays, tragedies and 
comedies in the literal and old-established 
sense, will continue to be written and pro- 
duced, for the benefit of a public which 
does not care to keep abreast of the most 
43 



Bernard Shaw 

modern drama of its time. But behind all 
this mass of popular drama the classical 
drama will quietly grow in power, and 
will gradually come into Its own. 

Thus it Is possible to meet calmly the 
outcry which is raised on every side with 
regard to the Shaw plays. Constantly one 
hears the comment : " Very witty and in- 
teresting; but It Isn't drama, you know." 
Now the question is, what Is drama ? The 
answer is a simple one: It Is one thing 
yesterday, and another thing to-morrow: 
and meanwhile. It is in a transition state, 
and It Is simple waste of time and energy to 
speculate on what It will become. Bernard 
Shaw is nothing if he Is not a pioneer; 
one who fearlessly crosses the old sacred 
frontiers of tragedy and comedy, and finds 
beyond a ground none the less sacred, be- 
cause it is hitherto untraversed by the 
mind of man. Speaking of drama, he once 
said: "The end may be reconciliation or 
destruction; or, as in life itself, there may 
he no endy I have always thought that the 
sentence which I have Italicised ought to 
receive particular emphasis In any consld- 
44 



The Choice of Comedy 

eratlon of Shavian form. All the plays 
illustrate the idea more or less. Spiritually, 
there is no final curtain in any of them. 
Take Major Barbara as an example. The 
thing is vital: you cannot conceive that it 
ceases to live when it vanishes from your 
sight. You can see Cusins arriving at six 
o'clock next morning, gently grumbling 
and whimsically pretending to rub his eyes 
at the early hour: you can see Barbara, 
with her eager, fervent face, going in and 
out of the model dwellings in the little 
white town. You know that Undershaft 
will labour to his life's end to fulfil the 
destiny he has revealed to you : and that 
Lady Britomart will continue to get her 
own excellent way with the utmost polite- 
ness and absence of consideration for other 
people's feelings. You can see Sarah and 
Cholly settling down to a fashionable exist- 
ence in the West End, and hear an echo as 
their carnage rolls past you in the street, 
*' You know there is a certain amount of 

tosh about " 

One may also mention here the fact that 
there is no such thing as "poetic justice " 

45 



Bernard Shaw 

in the Shaw plays. But there is vital 
justice: as a man sows, so does he reap, 
(which is quite a different thing). Man's 
destiny is fulfilled from within, it is not an 
external Force imposed on him from with- 
out. Hence in Shavian drama the neat 
ending, in which the wicked repent, and the 
good are justified, is not more common 
than in life. Writing in Tom Jones on 
modern comedy. Fielding describes the 
error into which the writers of his time 
have fallen: "their heroes generally are 
notorious rogues, and their heroines aban- 
doned jades, during the first four acts; 
but in the fifth, the former become very 
worthy gentlemen, and the latter women of 
virtue and discretion." He adds, naively: 
" There is. Indeed, no other reason to be 
assigned for it, than because the play is 
drawing to a conclusion." The whole fal- 
lacy which is involved here, and In the 
" happy ending " theory generally, Is en- 
tirely ignored by Bernard Shaw. Take 
Widowers' Houses as an example. There 
you see the problem working out exactly as 
it would have done in life. Sartorius flour- 

46 



The Choice of Comedy 

ishes from first to last like a green bay tree. 
There is no repentance and no change of 
front. Throughout he puts his case with 
the utmost dexterity. When all his skill 
fails to hide the hell out of which his money 
is dragged, Trench's fear of losing £450 
per annum (however obtained) plus the 
certainty of losing Blanche (Sartorius' 
daughter) proves quite too much for his 
outraged sense of justice, and he decides 
to " stand in." A less truthful dramatist 
would have given us Trench at bay, hero- 
ically declaiming on the sufferings of the 
poor, and a farewell scene with Blanche, in 
the *' I could not love thee, dear, so much, 
loved I not honour more " vein. 

Such situations may be very effective on 
the stage, but as a matter of fact they do 
not occur in life. 

It is interesting to consider Shavian 
drama in the light of Meredith's Essay on 
Comedy. There are many points of con- 
tact. In the first place, Meredith insists 
on Comedy as a social art. He speaks of 
" Society, or that assemblage of minds 
whereof the Comic spirit has its origin." 
47 



' Bernard Shaw 

Now no dramatic author hitherto has in- 
sisted so strongly on the social side of life 
as Bernard Shaw. Take the plays from 
first to last; there is not one of them to 
which this principle may not be applied. 
/The Pleasant Plays deal directly with social 
fi foHies: The Unpleasant Plays, with social 
\/ 1 horrors. In Three Plays for Puritans the 
application Is less literally obvious: but 
the Comic Spirit reigns supreme in them 
nevertheless. What else is at the root of 
the delightful contrast between Dick Dud- 
geon and his family in the inimitable scene 
at the reading of the Will? Caesar and 
Cleopatra Is an essentially comedic revel. 
John Bull's Other Island carries the 
Social principle a step further and gives 
you the affairs of a whole nation, an entire 
type of social life, as the background to 
your scene. In Major Barbara Shaw goes 
back to the social problem — the problem 
of poverty — and deals with it in masterly 
fashion. There can be no more convincing 
proof of his essentially comedic outlook 
than that he Is able to extract from the mass 
of sordid and tragic fact contained in the 

48 



The Choice of Comedy 

Prefaces, the transfiguration of Major 
Barbara which closes the play. 

It is clear from what I have said that the 
following reproach, levelled by Meredith 
at English comedy, no longer holds good. 
He says : '* Our English school has not 
clearly imagined Society; and of the mind 
hovering above congregated men and 
women, it has imagined nothing.'* 

From the first, Bernard Shaw has 
" Clearly imagined society.'' He has ob- 
served and analysed our social order with 
unerring and unfaltering courage and ac- 
curacy. 

I need only to refer here to the previous 
chapter on the Revolt against Romance to 
prove that Mr. Shaw agrees with Mere- 
dith in regarding the sentimentalist, i.e. 
the man who refuses to face facts, as one of 
the chief opponents of the Comic. 

The question of woman's position In 
comedy is altogether fascinating. First of 
all I should say — taking the deeper as- 
pect of the question first — that woman's 
relation with the Life Force and her 
strength of Initiative in that relation are 
D 49 



Bernard Shaw 

essentially comedic, although they often 
border on tragedy. Comedy means life, 
and Woman is by her very nature bound 
to further life. Take the following quota- 
tion from the Dream Act in Man and 
Superman : — 

Ana: . . . Tell me: where can I find the Su- 
perman? 

The Devil: He is not yet created, Seiiora. 

Ana : Not yet created ! Then my work is not yet 
done. [Crossing herself devoutly] I believe in the 
Life to Come. [Crying to the Universe] A father 
— a father for the Superman! 

Primarily and essentially, and without 
regard to special cases, woman's function 
in the universe is to create life and man's 
to nourish it. " That men should put 
nourishment first and women children first 
is, broadly speaking, the law of Nature 
and not the dictate of personal ambition." 
Further, Woman by her domestic labour 
is continually building up the forces in 
man and so continuing her original work. 
This work of hers is further complicated 
and rendered delightful by the fact that 
where her affections are engaged she is also 
50 



The Choice of Comedy 

occupied in building up the man's heart 
and soul and repairing the ravages which 
the world makes upon his fortress. Such 
a woman is to a man the Comedic Spirit, 
the Life-Giver — in a word, the Inspira- 
tion of the Life to Come. 

In all these ways, therefore, Woman's 
function may be regarded as comedic. But 
consider the matter from a simpler point of 
view. Take the question of social inter- 
course. Meredith explains in his essay 
that *^ the poor voice allowed to women in 
German domestic life will account for the 
absence of comic dialogues reflecting upon 
life in that land." And he continues, 
speaking of the East, " where the veil is 
over women's faces, you cannot have so- 
ciety." Again later, " Where women are 
on the road to an equal footing with men, 
in attainments and In liberty . . . there . . . 
pure comedy flourishes, and is, as it would 
help them to be, the sweetest of diversions, 
the wisest of delightful companions." 
There is no doubt that to the increasing 
social freedom of women in this country 
Is due a large proportion of delightful 

51 



Bernard Shaw 

comedy In the Shaw plays. Without such 
freedom it is obvious, for instance, that the 
adventures of Major Barbara and the esca- 
pades of Lady Cicely, not to speak of what 
I once heard called the " disgraceful mean- 
derings " of Ann, would have been im- 
possible. Not only so, but the whole atti- 
tude towards women in these plays, the 
detailed way in which their personalities 
are revealed, as if it were pre-eminently 
worth while to reveal them; as if they 
were desirable beings in themselves, and 
not merely put into the world as means to 
an end, however noble — all this accounts 
for the unique charm and fascination exer- 
cised by these women over our imagina- 
tions. The prominent part played by 
women in Shaw's plays should also be 
noted. Here again the plays prove Mere- 
dith's thesis: " Comedy lifts women to a 
station offering them free play for their 
wit, as they usually show it, when they 
have it, on the side of sound sense. The 
higher the Comedy, the more prominent 
the part they enjoy in it." Candida, Lady 
Cicely, Major Barbara, Mrs. George — to 
52 



The Choice of Comedy 

have reduced their Influence by a hair's 
breadth would have been to have done 
untold wrong to the lives and destinies of 
men. I was once at a great meeting ad- 
dressed by Mr. Shaw, at the end of which 
he was baited as usual by Innumerable 
questioners, till at last a little woman rose 
far off in the gallery and asked, *' What 
about the position of women?" There 
was the slightest possible touch of Impa- 
tience in Mr. Shaw's voice as he replied 
that he really could not be expected to treat 
of that subject at such a late hour. When 
I listened to the trance speech of Mrs. 
George at the Haymarket Theatre, I 
knew that the little woman had got her 
reply. 

W^Ith regard to the " sound sense " of 
women's wit in Comedy, the examples I 
have cited will serve excellently; but I 
should like to emphasize in particular the 
case of Lady Cicely Waynflete In Captain 
Brassbound's Conversion. Her wit may 
best be described In the words which Mere- 
dith has applied to Moliere. " It Is like a 
running brook, with Innumerable fresh 
S3 



Bernard Shaw 

lights on it at every turn of the wood 
. . . through which its business is to find 
a way. . . . Without effort ... it is full 
of healing, the wit of good breeding, the 
wit of wisdom." 



54 



Chapter IV 

Dramatic Consciousness 

"The truth is that dramatic invention is the first 
effort of man to become intellectually conscious." 

npO Bernard Shaw consciousness is the 
first aim of life. He makes this 
clear in the third act of Man and Super- 
man: — 

" What made this brain of mine, do you 
think? . . . Not merely the need to do, 
but the need to know what I do, lest in my 
blind efforts to live I should be slaying my- 
self." His own dramatic consciousness is 
extraordinary: its force and depth are 
unique in the annals of literature. 

Consciousness is a late development of 
the world-spirit. In order to test this 
statement you have only to compare a 
Shakespearean play with a Shavian one. 
Take Romeo and Juliet beside You Never 
Can Tell. Both contain a love story. But 
55 



Bernard Shaw 

you would do better to say of Romeo and 
Juliet that It is a love story. It is concerned 
with elemental passion, wholly instinctive, 
and therefore comparatively untroubled by 
the doubts, hopes, and fears of the con- 
scious mind. Take Juliet's words to 
Romeo at the last dawn-parting: — 

Juliet : 

Wilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day: 
It was the nightingale, and not the lark, 
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; 
Nightly she sings on yond pomegranate tree: 
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. 

Romeo : 

It was the lark, the herald of the morn, 
No nightingale : look, love, what envious streaks 
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: 
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day 
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops : 
I must begone and live, or stay and die. 

This scene will never be surpassed as an 
exposition of love pure and simple. But to 
proffer such a scene as an exposition of love 
in the twentieth century would be as absurd 
as It Is Impossible. 

Not Its blank verse alone, but also its 
simple grandeur, its comparative Immunity 

56 



Dramatic Consciousness 

from preoccupation, its childlike faith be- 
long to a bygone age. 

There are eternal elements in love: an 
isolation from the rest of the world, the 
lovers being alone in a cosmos of their own : 
a faith which can move mountains, and is 
yet part wisdom, part folly: a force and 
directness seldom approached In life: an 
ecstasy, perhaps, never. But all these 
things assume a different colour under our 
modern conditions. The thoughts which 
assail Juliet (Act II, Sc. Il) are simplicity 
itself compared with those which vex her 
counterpart to-day. The family feud: the 
fear of Romeo's death at the hands of her 
kinsmen : a touch of shame at the thought 
of her spoken word: these are the con- 
siderations which trouble her, and note that 
they are almost all external considerations. 
To-day the scene of drama has shifted from 
without to within the soul of man. Fears 
concerning family or kinsmen trouble the 
lovers less than the difficulties which arise 
within themselves. 

Take Valentine and Gloria in You Never 
Can Tell. Gloria resents even her 
57 



Bernard Shaw 

mother's Interference on her behalf. " I 
cannot beheve that anyone has any right 
even to think about things that concern me 
only." Now such a conception is utterly 
foreign to Juliet, because in her time the 
child was regarded as absolutely at the dis- 
posal of Its parents, beneficent or otherwise 
— the child had no option In the matter. 

The conception of the child as a separate 
Individual with a destiny to achieve with- 
out coercion from parents or friends is of 
quite modern growth. Nevertheless the 
end is the same — in either case the child 
has its way. This is JuHet's : — 

Lady Capulet: 

Marry, my child, early next Thursday morn. 
The gallant, young, and noble gentleman, 
The County Paris, at Saint Peter's Church, 
Shall happily make thee there a Joyful bride. 

Juliet: 

Now by Saint Peter's Church, and Peter too, 
He shall not make me there a joyful bride. 

The next point to be considered with 
regard to the Shavian consciousness is 
the wide extent of Its operation. For 
human consciousness not only Intensifies 

58 



Dramatic Consciousness 

with the centuries — its range also be- 
comes greater. Shakespear was content 
to confine his literary expression of him- 
self to his plays; for him there was no 
need to go further: his desire for con- 
scious expression was satisfied thereby. 
With Mr. Shaw, on the contrary, there is 
a great and urgent need to go further — 
springing as I have shown from the great 
increase in human consciousness in every 
department of life since the Elizabethan 
era. This extension of the operation of 
conscious thought is to be found primarily 
in the Prefaces to the Plays. 

These Prefaces are absolutely invaluable 
as storehouses of fact and thought. Scat- 
tered throughout, with the prodigality of 
genius, are ideas which will be expanded 
into tomes by the writers of the future, 
who will take the whole credit for their 
performances. 

Literary criticism, philosophic criticism, 
criticism of art, life, and morals — all these 
are to be found in abundance and will 
amply repay study. 

Above and beyond the Prefaces, how- 
59 



Bernard Shaw 

ever, the Increase of dramatic consciousness 
has left Its mark on the plays themselves. 
Notice the description of each new char- 
acter which precedes his or her entry. 
Take as an example the description of 
Andrew Undershaft In Major Barbara : — 

" Andrew is, on the surface, a stoutish, 
easy-going elderly man, with kindly patient 
manners, and an engaging simplicity of 
character. But he has a watchful, delib- 
erate, waiting, listening face, and formida- 
ble reserves of power, both bodily and men- 
tal, in his capacious chest and long head. 
His gentleness Is partly that of a strong 
man who has learnt by experience that his 
natural grip hurts ordinary people unless 
he handles them very carefully, and partly 
the mellowness of age and success.'' 

There you have a characteristically Sha- 
vian exposition of the man, revealing at 
once his mental and physical qualities; 
giving a broad hint, too, of the Shavian 
faculty of calculating the power of the phy- 
sical to reveal the mental. 

Again, note the depth of Shavian con- 
sciousness. It Is this very faculty of diving 
60 



Dramatic Consciousness 

for and bringing to light the Inner spiritual 
significance of men's lives which has led 
to much misunderstanding of the plays. 
Bernard Shaw's aim In each case has been 
to divine the heart and soul of the problem, 
to reveal the reality which underlies self- 
deception and pretence of every kind. So 
when he Is most In earnest — as in the last 
act of Man and Superman, for example — 
he often seems to the casual observer to be 
joking, or worse, to be indulging in some 
wanton folly. Throughout Man and Su- 
perman, as regards the relations between 
Ann and Tanner, Shaw is translating in- 
stinct Into act. It is mere foolishness to 
suppose that Ann's words in the fourth act, 
for Instance, are intended to represent lit- 
erally a conversation that would actually 
take place. But they are none the less true 
in spirit for all that. Bernard Shaw has 
found words for a silent instinct. 

Tanner : I will not marry you. I will not marry 
you. 

Ann : Oh, you will, you will. 
Tanner: I tell you, no, no, no. 
Ann: I tell you, yes, yes, yes. 

6i 



Bernard Shaw 

It is as well to bear this consideration in 
mind when thinking of the plays as a whole. 
There is a passage in the Quintessence of 
Ibsenism, which gives a very noteworthy 
key to the comprehension of Shavian 
drama. *^ Playwrights who formerly only 
compounded plays according to the re- 
ceived prescriptions for producing tears or 
laughter, are already taking their profes- 
sion seriously to the full extent of their 
capacity, and venturing more and more to 
substitute the incidents and catastrophes 
of spiritual history for the swoons, sur- 
prises, discoveries, murders, duels, ass- 
assinations and intrigues which are the 
commonplaces of the theatre at present.'* 

Remember that most illuminating phrase, 
" the incidents and catastrophes of spiritual 
history." It is with such Incidents that 
Shavian drama Is principally concerned. 

The main distinction to be drawn be- 
tween Shakespearean drama and Shavian 
drama is that the scene of action has shifted 
from the cosmos outside man to the cosmos 
within. The Elizabethans dealt primarily 
with man In his relations with the external 
62 



Dramatic Consciousness 

world. They lived in a time when the 
physical counted for much, when life was 
fresh and eager and vigorous, when man's 
adventuring with the elements was a daring 
and a passionate thing. Man himself, as 
they conceived him, was a creature of amaz- 
ing simplicity, full of warring passions, am- 
bitions, dreams: but always alert, always 
^^^ve, always looking ahead to the glorious 
possibilities of the unknown. 
, With the deepening consciousness of the 
race, man's consciousness of himself as 
revealed in literature has deepened too. 
Owing to the progress of science, mastery 
over the elements, over space and time, is 
so much nearer realization, that man is 
correspondingly freer to develop his spirit- 
ual energies. Hence he has become pre- 
occupied with himself. Formerly the world 
was his workshop : now he finds this within 
his own soul. Just as former dramatic 
conflicts between good and evil are now 
replaced by the subtler conflict between 
good and a higher good still: so a like 
subtlety attends the change which decrees 
that whereas the older plays were full of 
63 



Bernard Shaw 

conflicts between men's bodies so the 
modern plays are full of conflicts between 
men's souls.* If this were fully realised 
we should hear less nonsense about the 
absence of action In Bernard Shaw's plays. 
There Is plenty of action — but It Is spirit- 
ual action, not physical; and the critics have 
not yet become accustomed to the change. 

Out of this change of subject a change 
of form directly proceeds. *' The soul Is 
form and doth the body make." Whereas 
in Shakespear's Antony and Cleopatra, for 
example, you have five acts and a great 
number of scenes, some of them very short 
indeed: in Shaw's plays the tendency Is 
increasingly to simplify the dramatic In- 
strument. 

It Is true that in the majority of cases he 
retains the division into acts. Six of his 
published plays are written in three acts, 
^ve of them in four, and only one in five; 
so that in the matter of acts alone it will 
be seen that the process of simplification 
has gone far. 

* Note the sign of this change afforded by the titles of 
modern plays: Waste: Strife: Misalliance. 

64 



Dramatic Consciousness 

But he goes much farther than this. 
He discards the subdivision into scenes 
altogether. In this matter he Is very much 
In advance of his time. 

Considerable light Is thrown on this sub- 
ject by a statement In the Quintessence of 
Ibsenism: "The highest type of play 
Is completely homogeneous, often consist- 
ing of a single very complex Incident." It 
Is well to bear this statement In mind, for 
example, when dealing with Shaw's latest 
play, Getting Married. The critics might 
have been prepared for the thunderbolt 
w^hlch Is launched at conventional dramatic 
theory by this play, by the previous pro- 
duction of Don Juan In Hell at the Court 
Theatre. Don Juan forms the third act 
of Man and Superman, but as Shaw says 
In the Preface, It Is " a totally extraneous 
act " : It Is quite able to stand alone on Its 
own merits. Now In Don Juan In Hell 
the action Is entirely spiritual. Shaw de- 
scribes It thus: *' My hero, enchanted by 
the air of the Sierra, has a dream In 
which his Mozartlan ancestor appears and 
philosophizes at great length in a Shavlo- 
E 6s 



Bernard Shaw 

Socratic dialogue with the lady, the statue, 
and the devil." It is quite obvious that 
for the purpose of such a dialogue change 
of scene is not only unnecessary but pur- 
poseless and distracting. 

Getting Married is described by Ber- 
nard Shaw as a Conversation — it is not 
divided Into acts and scenes. In an inter- 
view in the Daily Telegraph, which pre- 
ceded the production of the play, he is 
reported to have spoken as follows : — 

Interviewer: Would it be indiscreet to ask you 
to lift a corner of the curtain prematurely, and give 
some notion of the plot of the play? 

Mr. Shaw : The play has no plot. Surely nobody 
expects a play by me to have a plot. I am a dramatic 
poet, not a plot-monger. 

Interviewer: But at least there is a story. 

Mr. Shaw: Not at all. If you look at any of the 
old editions of our classical plays, you will see that 
the description of the play is not called a plot or a 
story, but an argument. That exactly describes the 
material of my play. It is an argument — an argu- 
ment lasting nearly three hours, and carried on with 
unflagging cerebration by twelve people and a beadle. 

It is true that for the sake of my argu- 
ment I have here considered two extreme 
examples; but the principle I have enun- 
66 



Dramatic Consciousness 

dated, namely, that Shavian drama is 
concerned with " the Incidents and catas- 
trophes of spiritual history," proves valid 
as regards the rest of the plays. This 
change in the subject-matter of drama 
corresponds to a subtle change in man's 
attitude towards himself. To-day it is an 
accepted fact that " man is his own star." 
In Elizabethan drama, the conception of 
Fate was always hovering in the back- 
ground. A man's destiny pursued him re- 
lentlessly to the end — and his destiny was 
conceived as something outside himself, 
apart from himself, some doom alike irre- 
trievable and Irrevocable. It is true that 
Shakespear, since be had so great a part 
and lot In the " prophetic soul of the wide 
world dreaming on things to come," could 
cry with Cassius — 

Men at some time are masters of their fates : 
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
But in ourselves, that we are underlings. 

Still the world has hitherto replied, with 
Brutus — 

For this present, 
I would not ... Be any further mov'd. 

67 



Bernard Shaw 

To-day man^s thought concerning him- 
self has changed; he sees that he is at all 
times master of his fate; and this imposes 
upon him an enormous responsibility, and 
an amount of activity hitherto unknown. 
He sees that instead of submitting to the 
Divine Will, he must fulfil it — so that 
instead of regarding his religion as an 
excuse for mere laziness he finds in it an 
incentive to the utmost exertion of his 
powers. 

Major Barbara is an excellent example 
of a Shaw play considered from this 
standpoint. Major Barbara Is a singu- 
larly courageous young woman who finds 
her spiritual nature unsatisfied by the 
ordinary life of Society. So she goes to 
the other extreme, and becomes a Major 
In the Salvation Army. 

Here she Is blissfully happy for a time, 
conscious that she has become merged in 
a wider life, In the fulfilment of a purpose 
which far transcends the petty preoccupa- 
tions she has left behind her. But her 
happiness is short-lived. The Army is 
desperately in need of money: she finds 
68 



Dramatic Consciousness 

that her millionaire father, Andrew Under- 
shaft, maker of cannons, and Bodger, the 
distiller, are able to buy the army — i.e. 
to keep the Shelters 'open by their munifi- 
cent contributions, in spite of the wicked- 
ness — from her point of view — of their 
several occupations. For a time she is 
plunged in despair: for the work of Bodger 
and Undershaft stands in her mind for 
" drunkenness and murder " ; and the 
thought that through them the Army 
(which exists to fight them) should be 
saved is Intolerable. Then she is taken 
to see her father's cannon works, and finds 
a model city, with cleanliness and order 
everywhere, and a complete absence of the 
starvation, degradation and misery against 
which she has to strive at the Army shelter. 
As Undershaft says: "In your salvation 
shelter I saw poverty, misery, cold and 
hunger. You gave them bread and treacle 
and dreams of heaven. I give from thirty 
shillings a week to twelve thousand a year. 
They find their own dreams; but I look 
after the drainage." 

" It Is cheap work converting starving 

69 



Bernard Shaw 

men with a Bible in one hand and a slice 
of bread in the other. I will undertake 
to convert West Ham to Mahometanism 
on the same terms. Try your hand on 
my men: their souls are hungry because 
their bodies are full." 

Out of this experience Major Barbara 
learns her great lesson. By it her future 
is determined : — 

Barbara: My father shall never throw it in my 
teeth again that my converts were bribed with bread. 
[She is transfigured.] I have got rid of the bribe of 
bread. I have got rid of the bribe of heaven. Let 
God's work be done for its own sake: the work he 
had to create us to do because it cannot be done ex- 
cept by living men and women. 

I have told the story of Major Barbara 
here because It is Important to realize the 
sort of drama which may rightly be con- 
sidered as *' spiritual history." The play 
is the story of Barbara's soul: of her first 
faith, of Its test by reality (always the 
Shavian test) ; of Its failure and of the 
birth of the new passion which will In- 
spire her henceforward. 

It should be added that the word 
70 



Dramatic Consciousness 

" spiritual " in the phrase " incidents and 
catastrophes of spiritual history " has 
found a peculiarly literal application in 
this instance. In the other plays the con- 
flicts may be more properly called intel- 
lectual or passionate, but all come under 
the broad classification of " spiritual his- 
tory." 



71 



Chapter V 

Philosophy of Life 

T F I were asked to give the main tenet 
of Bernard Shaw's philosophy I should 
at once reply " the sanctity of life." It is 
upon this main foundation that his attitude 
towards man, and particularly towards man 
in his social relations, depends. A violence' 
done to life — not to physical life alone, 
but also to mental and spiritual life (a kind 
of violence which is often, comparatively 
speaking, thought lightly of or Ignored) , Is 
to him the unpardonable sin. We are here 
at the behest of the Life Force, to preserve 
and enhance to the fullest possible extent 
the flame of divinity which has been en- 
trusted to our care. 

It is for this reason that Shaw wishes 
to protect the artist against the forces of 
modern civilization which would pervert 
his art In order to feed the vanity and 
flatter the conceit of his audience. The 
72 



Philosophy of Life 

mission of art in the world is to produce 
beauty and truth in such guise as to stimu- 
late and engender fresh life in the beholder. 
The fact that the artist, while he is at work, 
may be conscious of nothing but the blind 
instinct to create, does not affect the issue 
in the least. 

Now it follows from this proposition 
that in the case of every work of art in 
which the artist has consciously violated 
his message in order to flatter his audience, 
an Injury Is done, first to himself, and 
secondly to every human being who comes 
in contact with his work. For just in so 
far as the message Is violated, the work 
becomes, not an inspiration, but a lie. 
Adroitness and subtlety in the presentation 
of the message are quite another thing, at 
times essential — if the artist has no ambi- 
tion to be stoned — and very often wise. 

To return to the Shavian philosophy. 
You may trace the origin of Bernard Shaw's 
conviction of the sacredness of life back to 
that devotion of reality, which has been 
discussed in previous chapters. His whole 
desire is for the sanctification and further- 
73 



Bernard Shaw 

ance of the real. So In Act iii of Man 
and Superman he defines Hell as " the 
home of the unreal and of the seekers for 
happiness," as " the only refuge from 
heaven, which is the home of the masters 
of reality, and from earth, which is the 
home of the slaves of reality." 

Then we come to the crux of the whole 
matter. Life is defined as " the force that 
ever strives to attain greater power of 
contemplating Itself." Throughout the 
evolutionary process " Life was driving at 
brains — at its darling object: an organ by 
which it can attain not only self-conscious- 
ness but self-understanding." Later on 
this brain power is more closely defined: 
** Life is evolving to-day a mind's eye that 
shall see, not the physical world, but the 
purpose of Life, and thereby enable the 
individual to work for that purpose Instead 
of thwarting and baffling it by setting up 
shortsighted personal aims as at present.'^^ 

It will be seen at once that this philoso- 
phy increases man's personal responsibility 
for the well-being of the world enormously. 
It says, in effect: " You must, to the ut- 
74 



Philosophy of Life 

most extent of your power, seek to dis- 
cover the Win of the Life Force (the 
Divine Will) and to fulfil it/' It leaves no 
room for that old excuse for laziness, sub- 
mission to the will of God. Instead, we 
are to do the will of God, which is a much 
more arduous proceeding. 

It Is for this reason that Shaw extols the ^ 
philosopher and his function. " I sing 
... the philosophic man: he who seeks 
in contemplation to discover the Inner will 
of the world, In invention to discover the 
means of fulfilling that will, and in action 
to do that will by the so-discovered means." 

What place do Love and the Woman 
hold In this great philosophy? The high- 
est. It Is characteristic of Bernard Shaw 
that his view of woman Is at once the most 
practical and the most transcendentally 
spiritual. Woman holds the secret of 
being. Just as In the brain of man the 
consciousness of the race is being evolved 
and Increased: so through the soul of 
woman Being, the great I Am, is given 
to the world. " I said, with the foolish 
philosopher, *I think; therefore I am.' 
75 



Bernard Shaw 

It was Woman who taught me to say * I 
am; therefore I think.' And also *I 
would think more; therefore I must be 
more.' " 

The great lesson which the world is 
learning to-day is that the purpose of 
Life cannot be achieved without the co-^ 
operation of man and woman. In order 
that we may rise to the heights of our 
destiny (heights which modern philosophy 
reveals or rather suggests as unthinkably 
great) man must take advantage of all the 
weapons which the Life Force has put 
within his power. And the greatest of 
these is Woman. Man does not at first 
think this. He thinks that his destiny 
may be achieved by himself alone. Des- 
tinies so achieved are likely to be very 
one-sided — to be characterised by brain- 
consciousness, and to lack being-conscious- 
ness. The hardest thing Bernard Shaw 
has ever said of woman (Tanner's saying 
in Man and Superman: the greatest com- 
mon measure of a man and a woman is 
not necessarily greater than the man's 
single measure) hardly affects the ques- 

76 



Philosophy of Life 

tlon, since he lacked the generosity to 
point out that the proposition is often 
equally true when reversed. 

One of the greatest evils of the present 
day is the development of man at the ex- 
pense of woman. Men forget that the 
woman who goes (or rather is sent) to 
the wall becomes the mother of children 
and that her weakness means further weak- 
ness in her sons. So to all those who urge 
the preservation and enlightenment of the 
race I would say " Look to your women 
folk; the men are able at this stage in 
their evolution to take care of themselves. 
Do not forget the inheritance of strength 
or weakness which the mother no less than 
the father bequeaths to her children."- 

In a memorable phrase Bernard Shaw 
expounds the educational value of the 
love-encounter to the persons concerned. 
" That moment introduced me for the 
first time to myself, and, through myself, 
to the world." It is only when you come 
into contact with a force stronger than 
yourself that you learn the measure of 
your own strength. When the Life Force 
77 



Bernard Shaw 

takes two people " by the scruffs of their 
little necks/' as Valentine says, and uses 
them In spite of themselves for a purpose 
above and beyond their own, then they 
find out for the first time their relative 
value in the universal scheme. Until that 
moment they have only known their per- 
sonal value: they have used their indi- 
vidual judgment, have done as they 
thought fit: but now a greater power 
than they have hitherto known comes 
Into their lives, and they begin to view 
themselves and the world in a new and 
broader light. It is at this point that 
Shaw Introduces his great prophecy con- 
cerning the future of the race. The 
dwindling birth-rates, which are causing 
so much comment to-day, will be replaced 
by the " great central purpose of breeding 
the race, ay, breeding It to heights now 
deemed superhuman." It only remains 
to add that Bernard Shaw Is already justi- 
fied by the activities of the Eugenics 
Society. 

We now reach the central point of the 
Shavian philosophy. 

78 



Philosophy of Life 

" I tell you that as long as I can con- 
ceive something better than myself I can- 
not be easy unless I am striving to bring 
it into existence or clearing the way for 
it. That Is the law of my life. That Is 
the working within me of Life's Incessant 
aspiration to higher organization, wider, 
deeper, Intenser self-consciousness, and 
clearer self-understanding." This is the 
principle which lies at the root of evolu- 
tion. The terms In which It is expressed 
are eminently characteristic of the pioneer 
quality of the Shavian philosophy. It is 
a preparation for that which Is to come. ^ 

Now it Is just this central law which 
gives due proportion to all the other de- 
partments of life. This Is the Spiritual 
Principle, which, among all the mutations 
which are constantly taking place, does 
** not change, nor falter, nor repent." 
Love, art, and religion may at times fail 
to console: this great purpose of the Life 
Force alone remains certain to encourage 
the soul of man. 

After all, It Is the principle which finds 
expression in the highest love, the most 
79 



Bernard Shaw- 
potent art, the most sincere religion. For 
these are all attempts to create the more 
beautiful thing. Nature, whose sole aim 
is to evolve the most perfect living crea- 
ture, deliberately casts an atmosphere of 
Illusion over her children. No lover has 
ever loved, no artist has ever worked, no 
devotee ever prayed with such passion 
before. So thinks every lover, every 
artist, every devotee. And by her works 
Nature Is justified. 

But observe that the purpose of the 
Life Force Is the same throughout. Man 
Is the object of all Its endeavour. It does 
not care intrinsically for great painting or 
poetry or music, nor for the joy of lovers 
or the mysterious beauty of cathedrals: 
but It cares Intensely for the fruit of all 
these things — the perfected soul of man. 
In order to obtain this result — in order. 
In the ages which are coming, to evolve 
the Superman — It urges on all human 
activity through Its appointed channels, 
through " the unthinkable Infinitude of 
time." 

Here it is well to give Bernard Shaw's 
80 



Philosophy of Life 

definition of the Philosopher's function. 
" The philosopher is in the grip of the 
Life Force. This Life Force says to him 
* I have done a thousand wonderful things 
unconsciously by merely willing to live 
and following the line of least resistance: 
now I want to know myself and my desti- 
nation, and choose my path; so I have 
made a special brain — a philosopher's 
brain — to grasp this knowledge for me as 
the husbandman's hand grasps the plough 
for me.' " The object of this knowledge 
on the part of the philosopher is " to be 
able to choose the line of greatest advan- 
tage instead of yielding in the direction of 
the least resistance." Then in a few words 
the whole case is magnificently summed 
up: "The philosopher Is Nature's pilot 
. . . to be in hell is to drift; to be in 
heaven Is to steer." 

It Is very significant that The Dream In 
Act III of Man and Superman should end 
on the note " woman." The significance 
would seem to be this: just as man learns 
from woman the secret of being-con- 
sciousness, so woman learns from man 
F 8i 



Bernard Shaw 

the secret of braln-consclousness. Woman 
is learning this lesson more and more per- 
fectly every day. 

There sounds a triumphant note of In- 
spiration for the future of the race — for 
the united consciousness of brain and 
being — In the cry of Ana at the close of 
the dream : " A father — a father for the 
Superman I " 



82 



Chapter VI 

Bernard Shaw and the 
World 

V\^ITH regard to all men of genius, 
before a fair estimate of their work 
can be obtained, there are certain pre- 
liminary remarks to be made, certain 
forces to be reckoned with at the outset, 
arising out of the very nature of the situa- 
tion. 

The man in the street sees the man of 
genius through a mist of prejudice, of con- 
servatism, of ideas cherished on account of 
their very age. Now it is part of Nature's 
scheme of evolution that a certain propor- 
tion of the men of genius born into the 
world should be iconoclasts, men who pre- 
pare the way for the light to come. It is 
important to bear these facts in mind as we 
consider the relations between Bernard 
Shaw and the World. 

83 



Bernard Shaw 

Much has been heard, since he leapt Into 
fame, of the synlcism of Shaw. No greater 
mistake has ever been made with regard to 
a man of genius. Shaw's so-called cynicism 
is nothing more nor less than the outward 
effect of an intense desire to have no second 
best in any department of life. He sees 
the good in existing institutions as clearly 
as we do; he has said so over and over 
again. But he sees the mistakes too; and 
he knows that there is no rhyme nor reason 
in his wasting his Intellectual capacity by 
telling us how well we have done, when he 
knows that If our faults are pointed out to 
us, we shall be enabled to do so much 
better. The whole question is one of 
economy. We have no time to waste. We 
are here for a little while in the sun, born 
with a spirit of almost Infinite potency, and 
a body of pitiable weakness. He says to 
us: ''Do not stay: do not rest: do not 
be satisfied: there Is more ahead, unknown 
lands to which the spirit of man may attain, 
where he may become transfigured, glori- 
fied, one with God. All these mistakes, 
these wrongs, these fallings-back are keep- 
84 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

ing you from the Land of Beatitude which 
is before you." 

It has been said of Coleridge that " he 
hungered for eternity." It shall be said of 
Bernard Shaw that he so hungered for the 
infinite goodness of God that he dedicated 
his life to man's attainment thereto. 

I Intend in this chapter to deal with 
some of the favourite gibes which have 
been levelled at Shaw by men whose opin- 
ion deserves to carry considerable weight. 

First, there are those who deny him any 
serious Intention whatever. They refer 
you comprehensively to his wit, as if that 
were not only his chief, but his sole asset. 
If he states a truth which sounds to them 
different from the A B C of art and morals 
on which they have been brought up, they 
dub it a gay paradox and say it Is ^' So like 
Shaw." 

In reply to this I should like to say first, 
that In judging that Bernard Shaw would 
deal with any spiritual truth out of wanton 
wit they are reckoning without their man. 
No keener artistic conscience than his 
exists at the present time — few so keen. 

8s 



Bernard Shaw 

There Is nothing of the doctrine of " art 
for art's sake " about him. " For art's 
sake alone," he says, " I would not face the 
toil of writing a single sentence." Take 
the simple test of superfluity. You con- 
stantly see the assertion that Shaw's plays 
are " all talk." It Is inferred that he writes 
ad lib., %o to speak. In a very limited 
sense this Is perfectly true: the man's 
copiousness of thought and felicity of 
utterance are amazing. But the real test 
of his quality Is, Can you leave anything 
out? Try: and you will find that serious 
Injury to his main subject will result. It 
Is all Inevitable and essential; It all has a 
place and a purpose. For Shaw's work, 
like Whistler's, Is not a matter of taste, but 
of knowledge. 

But In these preliminary remarks we 
have not reached the heart of the matter. 
The answer to this criticism of Shaw, 
which says that he has no real point of 
view, lies deeper; and a careful study 
of his works will convince you that the 
truth is to be found at the very opposite 
pole. The fact that he Is a dramatist has 
86 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

put people off the scent. There are two 
quotations from his works which should 
be studied side by side in this connection. 
One is a passage from the Preface to Man 
and Superman: "Not that I disclaim the 
fullest responsibility for his (Tanner's) 
opinions and for those of all my characters, 
pleasant and unpleasant. They are all 
right from their several points of view; 
and their points of view are, for the dra- 
matic moment,"^ mine also." 

I have taken this quotation first be- 
cause It reveals to you the dramatic aspect 
of the Shavian mind. Couple with it the 
following from The Sanity of Art: "The 
notion that the great poet and artist can 
do no wrong is as mischievously erroneous 
as the notion that the King can do no 
wrong. ... In my last play. The Doctor's 
Dilemma, I recognized this by dramatizing 
a rascally genius, with the disquieting 
result that several highly Intelligent and 
sensitive persons passionately defended 
him, on the ground, apparently, that high 
artistic faculty and an ardent artistic 

* Italics are m'ne. — R. M. D. 

87 



Bernard Shaw 

imagination entitle a man to be recklessly 
dishonest about money and recklessly 
selfish about women." 

You win rightly Infer from this last 
quotation that there is a Shavian point of 
view.* 

At this point I shall take up again the 
much ridiculed comparison between Shaw 
and Shakespear, because much may be 
learnt from It In the present connection. 
Bernard Shaw claims that Shakespear " has 
left us no Intellectually coherent drama " ; 
and speaking elsewhere of Dickens and 
Shakespear, he says : ^* Their pregnant 
observations and demonstrations of life 
are not co-ordinated into any philosophy 
or religion." 

Let us examine this charge against 
Shakespear. Is It true ? 

One thing at least is certain. If he 
had any message to give us, any inspira- 
tion of a constructive character, we are 
justified in looking for it in those plays 
which represent his ripest experience, his 

* For further discussion of the case in The Doctor's 
Dilemma, see the Sanity of Art, pp. 12-13. 

88 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

most mature judgment — plays such as 
The Tempest and The Winter's Tale. 
What do we find there? These plays all 
close on the note of peace, of reconcilia- 
tion, of calm after storm : — 

Sleepe after toyle, port after stormie seas, 

Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please. 

This is a very beautiful conception. But 
we must face the facts, and they clearly 
point to this: that for Shakespear there 
was no active looking forward, but only 
calm at the end. Bernard Shaw's wonder- 
ful revelation of " the prophetic Soul of 
the wide world dreaming on things to 
come " was not in his age, was not pos- 
sible for his time. It is not for us to cavil 
at Shakespear because this is so; rather 
we should accept his magical bounty of 
truth and beauty in the frank and joyful 
spirit In which it is offered. What I wish 
to point out is that Shaw can offer us a 
further gift — not more comfort, but more 
courage. Throughout his work the dis- 
cerning eye can see the signs of prepara- 
tion. A great time is at hand. The old 
89 



Bernard Shaw 

modes of life and thought are shifting, 
changing, giving place to new. And be- 
hind all the changes, as the motive power 
and Inner cause of them all, lies the 
conception of the Superman. Towards 
this the evolution of woman's soul, 
through various channels but with its 
own peculiar and individual function, is 
assuredly moving. 

This sense of «. high judgment-seat 
behind Shaw's various dramatic pageantry 
is our surety and stand-by, our guarantee 
of his good faith. It is this which gives 
unity to his work — this consciousness of 
a message which he has been sent to 
deliver, and which appears over and over 
again under different aspects and in differ- 
ent forms. I have heard people grumble 
because, they said, Bernard Shaw had 
dehvered his message and had nothing 
more to say. Apart from the fact that 
these people differed considerably as to 
the nature of the message he had already 
delivered, I would remind them that no 
man of genius ever has more than one 
message to deliver to the world. This 
90 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

message consists of a revelation to man- 
kind of his conception of God and the 
Universe. According to his special faculty 
he may reveal this in terms of philosophy, 
or of the arts, or of both, as with Shaw. 
But this is his revelation, this is his func- 
tion and service to his generation, which, 
as is universally known, and as has been 
proved once again in the case of Bernard 
Shaw, for the most part disdains his 
message. 

Another question which one frequently 
hears debated is, Are Bernard Shaw's char- 
acters true to life? The difficulty which 
people find In recognizing the prototypes 
of his characters and situations around 
them in their daily life, arises mainly out 
of Shaw's analytical temperament. He 
sees men and women as a god from a dis- 
tant sphere would see them, with their 
relative greatness and littleness marked 
out as clearly and relentlessly as the coun- 
tries are marked on a map. He sees their 
souls; nothing Is hidden from his piercing 
gaze. We wrap ourselves in our follies, 
we bolster up our fears, we hide beneath a 
91 



Bernard Shaw 

sturdy exterior, a shrinking heart; but we 
cannot deceive him; and presently we 
stand revealed, in all our futility and 
cowardice, in all our emptiness of heart 
and brain. I can imagine him echoing the 
words of the Revelation : " I know thy 
works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: 
I would thou wert cold or hot. . . . Because 
thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with 
goods, and have need of nothing; and 
knowest not that thou art wretched, and 
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.'' 
I remember discussing You Never Can 
Tell with an extremely intelligent woman 
of my acquaintance, and referring to the 
famous love scene * between Valentine and 
Gloria, she said: *' That's a funny sort of 
love scene." It was an absolutely honest 
remark: and it revealed to me In a flash 
the attitude of the general mind towards 
the Shavian expositions of these conflicts of 
soul. As I have discussed this particular 
scene elsewhere I will only say here that 
the " funny " — meaning extraordinary — 
character of this love scene arises entirely 

* Close of Act II. 
92 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

from the fact that it is treated analytically. 
It is not a literal rendering of a love-crisis : 
it represents rather the mystic and inner 
truth of that passionate encounter. It is 
as if some spiritual reporter had been pres- 
ent, and had noted in his book, not what 
the lovers said with their lips, but what 
they felt in their souls. 

Over and over again I have tested 
Bernard Shaw's work — his insight into 
human character, and in particular, his 
revelation of Irish life and mind; and he 
has invariably triumphed. Independent 
testimony pours in from all sides to the 
same effect. A lady who had lived much 
In Ireland once assured me that she could 
lay her finger, so to speak, on all the Irish 
types described in John Bull's Other Is- 
land. Another lady, when the conversation 
was entirely independent of Shaw, para- 
phrased in simple prose Larry's great 
speech near the beginning of John Bull, 
her point being to prove that Irish char- 
acter is the product of the Irish climate.* 

* The speech referred to is the one beginning: "No, no: 
the climate is different." 

93 



Bernard Shaw 

Once in a London club when the subject 
of discussion was whether Bernard Shaw's 
women characters were true to nature or 
not, I saw a man stand up to champion 
Mrs. George, surprised that no one had 
been found to bring her any tribute. The 
same man bore testimony to the truth-to- 
Hfe-ness of Morell and Eugene in Candida. 
A friend of mine once said that he knew 
people who, if they were placed in the same 
situations as the characters in The Philan- 
derer, would act in precisely the same way. 
I could cite many other examples, but these 
are enough to serve my present purpose. 

The charges which in the nature of things 
are most frequently made against the pio- 
neer are those which are most often brought 
against Shaw. It is, for Instance, frequently 
stated that his philosophy Is destructive 
rather than constructive, and this is re- 
garded as a defect In him. This charge is 
only in part true, and in so far as it is true 
It should be regarded as a virtue and not as 
a defect. 

Go to his works first (not, as Is so often 
done, to the remarks made by his accusers) , 
94 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

and after reading diem, ask yourself if the 
charge is a true one. Can you honestly 
say, after a perusal of Man and Superman, 
for example, that his philosophy is destruc- 
tive? No more constructive philosophy 
was ever offered to mankind. The play 
teems with positive inspiration for future 
generations. There is in It enough spiritual 
force to provide the inmost soul of future 
drama — to supply the basic fabric upon 
which that drama will be built up, so that 
dramatists for years to come will patiently 
reap where Shaw has sown, expatiating, en- 
larging upon and elaborating his primary 
Inspirations. Take, for example, the fol- 
lowing passage from Man and Superman, 
which enunciates the philosophic principle 
underlying all Shavian drama : " This is 
the true joy In life, the being used for a 
purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty 
one ; the being thoroughly worn out before 
you are thrown on the scrap heap; the 
being a force of Nature Instead of a fever- 
ish, selfish little clod of ailments and griev- 
ances complaining that the world will not 
devote itself to making you happy." 

95 



Bernard Shaw 

Look for a moment at Bernard Shaw's 
plays as a protest against conventionalism 
and the employment of obsolete Ideas In 
drama. Can It be denied that his revolt 
against romance (romance which had de- 
generated Into a mere fetish Instead of 
being a living Inspiration, as with Shake- 
spear) has done the very best thing that 
could be done for drama, that Is to say, has 
set the dramatic form free to find Its own 
path, to evolve according to Its own Inner 
necessity? Cashel Byron, In The Admir- 
able Bashvllle, voices precisely one's feeling 
about the drama which Shaw has super- 
seded. " O God, let me be natural a mo- 
ment ! " The solution of the whole prob- 
lem lies In the fact that the Shakespearean 
epoch — the epoch of Romance — is at an 
end. Bernard Shaw Is the prophet of the 
new era — the era of Reality : but, as usual, 
we take a long while to become accustomed 
to the change. 

But It Is on this very account — because 
his Ideas are new — that so many people 
object to Shaw, and dub his philosophy 
destructive. Ideas are not necessarily de- 

96 



Bernard Shaw 

structive because they are new. They will 
in their turn become old, and meanwhile 
they have prepared the way for other and 
far-reaching truths — they have let in light 
for us to see the new truths by. There is 
no need for anyone to take up a superior 
attitude towards those who do not at pres- 
ent appeciate Bernard Shaw. Many to-day 
are on the borderland of doing so : and Un- 
dershaft rightly interprets their state of 
mind when he says to Major Barbara: 
" You have learnt something. That always 
feels at first as if you had lost something." 
Finally, I would urge that if the Shavian 
genius is partly destructive, this is a virtue 
In It, and not a defect. Only by an infu- 
sion of new truth can the world progress : 
and destruction alone can prepare the way 
for the coming of the new truth. So Tan- 
ner in Man and Superman: — 

Ann [bored] : I am afraid I am too feminine to 
see any sense in destruction. Destruction can only 
destroy. 

Tanner : Yes. That is why it is so useful. Con- 
struction cumbers the ground with institutions made 
by busy-bodies. Destruction clears it, and gives us 
breathing space and liberty. 

G 97 



Bernard Shaw 

The would-be worshippers of Construc- 
tion will doubtless dub this passage an- 
archical. I therefore insert here a few 
authoritative words which are to the point 
in this connection. 

" There is a prevalent idea that the 
constructive genius is in itself something 
grander than the critical, even though the 
former turns out to have merely made a 
symmetrical rubbish heap in the middle 
of the road of science which the latter 
has to clear away before anybody can get 
forward." * These words apply with 
special force to Shaw's position in the 
world of dramatic literature to-day. 

Finally, I contend that the genius of 
Bernard Shaw is ultimately constructive. 
For proof, turn to the second act of 
Caesar and Cleopatra: by his own words 
he is justified. 

The Library of Alexandria is in flames. 

Theodotus [kneeling, with genuine literary emo- 
tion : the pacsion of the pedant] : Caesar : once in 
ten generations of men, the world gains an immortal 
book. 

* Huxley's " Method and Results." 

98 



Bernard Shaw and the World 

C^SAR [inflexible] : If it did not flatter mankind, 
the common executioner would burn it. 

Theodotus: Without history, death will lay you 
beside your meanest soldier. 

C^sar: Death will do that in any case. I ask 
no better grave. 

Theodotus: What is burning there is the mem- 
ory of mankind. 

Caesar: A shameful memory. Let it burn. 

Theodotus [wildly]: Will you destroy the past? 

C^sar: Ay, and build the future with its ruins. 



99 



Chapter VII 

The Function of Bernard 
Shaw 

"We are led to believe a lie 
When we see zvith not through the eye, 
Which was born in a night to perish in a night 
When the soul slept in beams of light." 

William Blake. 

"DLAKE and Shaw, so dissimilar from 
the merely external point of view, are 
entirely at one on the mystical plane. Shaw 
has drawn public attention to the sympathy 
which exists between them: but the sub- 
ject may be pursued a little further with 
advantage. 

The artist-mystic (or the artist-philoso- 
pher: the terms are interchangeable, for 
it has been well said that the mystic has 
the root of philosophy in him) — the artist- 
mystic is the greatest of seers, the most 
mighty of all the creators of mind. He 

lOO 



Function of Bernard Shaw 

ploughs the soil of thought: the artists 
who follow him in the same epoch do but 
reap where he has sown. The distinction 
between the artist and the artist-mystic is 
made clear in the case of Dubedat in The 
Doctor's Dilemma. Dubedat was an ar- 
tist, a genius, but " a rascally genius." 
Lest anyone should be tempted, how- 
ever, in a rash mxOment, to under-estimate 
his work I shall quote here his beautiful 
profession of faith, at once an inspiration 
and a prophecy. " I believe in Michael 
Angelo, Velasquez, and Rembrandt, in the 
might of design, in the mystery of color, 
in the redemption of all things by Beauty 
everlasting, and the message of Art that 
has made these hands blessed. Amen. 
Amen." 

It is customary to consider Bernard 
Shaw primarily as a philosopher and to 
depreciate his talent as an artist, if not to 
deny him all artistic talent whatsoever. 
This judgment is a mistaken one. His 
artistic apprehension is singularly acute, 
and the evidence of this is writ large 
over all his plays. The primary demand 

lOI 



Bernard Shaw 

which we make of the artist Is, that he 
shall feed the human soul through the 
channel of aesthetic beauty. Beauty shall 
clothe his work as it were with a garment. 
To the artist pure and simple, indeed, 
beauty Is In Itself satisfying enough. To 
Keats, dying In his early noon, it so 
seemed : — 

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: 

Its loveliness increases ; it will never 

Pass into nothingness ; but still will keep 

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep 

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing. 

And again : — 

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth 
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, 
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways 
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, 
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall 
From our dark spirits. 

Yet we see even here, that Keats was 
rapidly developing from the point of 
view of the artist pure and simple, to 
that of an artist-mystic of a very high 
order. 

But the Shavian conception of the rela- 

I02 



Function of Bernard Shaw 

tion which exists between beauty and 
philosophy, is far more positive than that 
indicated in the lines quoted above. 
Bernard Shaw formulated it in a lecture 
which he delivered In the City Temple In 
October, 1908. 

" Great artists," he said, " In order to 
get a hearing, have to fascinate their 
hearers; they have to provide a garment 
of almost supernatural beauty for the 
message they have to deliver. Therefore, 
he (the artist) becomes a master of rhe- 
toric which affects you like music." * 
That Is to say, the function of beauty In 
art is to secure an audience for Its philo- 
sophy. One might go a step further here, 
and add, finally, that the union of truth 
(or philosophy) and beauty In art Is a 
mystery, as the poets have clearly per- 
ceived, from Spenser and Shakespear in 
the sixteenth century to Keats In the 
nineteenth. *' Beauty Is truth, truth 
beauty." 

In considering Bernard Shaw as a philo- 
sopher I should like to draw attention 

* As reported in The Christian Commonwealth. 
103 



Bernard Shaw 

to his curative power. He does not 
wallow in the miseries which, constitute 
the social problem of to-day. In a manner 
which can only be compared to that of 
the finest artist-philosophers — Blake, for 
example, and Bunyan — he states the whole 
case concisely, and presents the problem 
in so unmistakable a fashion that it can no 
longer be " hedged '' or evaded in any 
way. " The Truth," says William Blake, 
" can never be told so as to be understood 
and not be believed." It Is Impossible to 
read the Unpleasant Plays and to remain 
unmoved by an urgent sense of social sin. 
But observe his method of dealing with 
" the sins of society." * Contrast with it 
that of so many modern authors, who linger 
morbidly over the symptoms of disease in 
our social system, and being powerless to 
suggest a cure, leave the reader or spec- 
tator In a state of mind bordering on 
despair. Take, for example, a play called 
Links, translated from the Dutch, and 
recently presented by the Stage Society. 

* Taking the phrase in its widest application, of course: 
using the word " society " to imply the whole social system. 

104 



Function of Bernard Shaw 

The play is distinctly clever, and it was 
acted to admiration, especially by Mr. 
Fisher White, to whom it afforded a 
valuable opportunity. But Christian's 
feelings in the Slough of Despond must 
have been tepid compared with those of 
the unfortunate playgoer who stumbled, 
half blind with horror, out of that Sunday- 
evening performance of Links. 

The ultimate cause of Bernard Shaw's 
superiority in this direction is to be found 
In his humour, using the word in the 
highest sense of which it is capable. 

" Let us not forget," says the Bishop of 
Chelsea, " that humour is a divine attri- 
bute." I would go further, and would 
say that humour, as I am about to define 
it, is the divinest of all attributes. By 
humour, here, I mean the comedic sense: 
preoccupation with life, not death; with 
salvation, not sin; with a joyful faith in 
the ultimate achievement of God, not 
with despair. In spite of all the disease- 
symptoms which Bernard Shaw observes 
in Society, and has depicted for us with 
an accuracy so relentless and so terrible 
105 



Bernard Shaw 

that he has spared neither himself nor us; 
In face, I repeat, of the direst of these 
symptoms, his head Is yet held high, his 
courage Is unfailing, his Inspiration re- 
mains supreme. It is the greatest of his 
distinctions, that he is always on the side 
of the forces of life as opposed to the 
forces of death: In short, that he believes 
in life. If this one fact about him has been 
made clear, this book will not have been 
written In vain. 



The End 



io6 



SOCIALISM AND 
SUPERIOR BRAINS 

BY 

BERNARD SHAW 

Cloth. 16mo. 75 cents net. Postage 10 cents. 

Some Topics Treated in this Book 

A Reply to Mr. Maliock. 

The Able Author. 

The Able Inventor. 

Ability at Supply-and-Demand Prices. 

Imaginary Ability. 

The Ability that gives Value for Money. 

Waste of Ability and Inflation of its Price by the 

Idle Rich. 
Artificial Rent of Ability. 
Artificial Ability. 

How Little Really Goes to Ability. 
Socialism the Paradise of the Able. 
The Highest Work also the Cheapest. 
The Economics of Fine Art. 
Profits and Earnings versus Rent and Interest. 
Government of the Many by the Few. 
The Incentive to Production. 



GEORGE BERNARD SHAW 

BY 
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON 

An Illustrated Biography 

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